Bully Awareness Week and the Dead Kids

It's Bully Awareness Week, and for kids in Canada it couldn't have come at a better time. After a horrifying streak of bullying related suicides.

Mitchell Wilson, bullied to death because he had muscular dystrophy.

The bullying that her grandson suffered at his school, Westcreek Public School in Pickering, led the boy to lose his will to live, his grandmother said...“He said to me, ‘Mimi, my biggest issue is that I can’t protect myself, and if a man cannot protect himself, then he is not a man,’” recalled Ms. Wilson.

“At the cottage in July, he said, ‘If I have to go back to that school, I’ll kill myself.’”

Jamie Hubley, bullied to death because he was gay.

“I wish I could be happy, I try, I try, I try ... I just want to feel special to someone,” he wrote.

“I hate being the only open gay guy in my school ... It f---ing sucks, I really want to end it..."

Christopher Howell, bullied to death for having Tourette's Syndrome. Or just being different.

Friends and family say Chris, a Grade 12 student, had a troubled time in school. They say he was bullied and taunted. Before Chris ended his life, his father said he told his mother he couldn’t deal with it anymore.

Three deaths in just TWO months. In six years of blogging about bullying, I've never seen anything so sad and so awful.

So you'd think that as a society we'd be doing all we can to try to save the lives of other suffering Canadian children. But although some teachers and kids and support organizations are doing their very best to fight the problem, for which I am so grateful. It's all so small and humble compared to what many other countries are doing.

Governments in this country are doing practically nothing, and of course, Stephen Harper's Cons aren't interested in funding a national anti-bullying campaign, because they are bullies themselves.

So we don't see any videos like this one, that was produced by the Children Ombudsman's office of the Dutch government....




Which is too bad eh? Because that's such a great message. For EVERYBODY.

Oh well. What can I do? Except keep repeating my humble message:

Whether it happens in a school, or a workplace, or a senior's home, stand up to the bullies.

Tell them bullying is cowardly and cruel.

Tell them that bullies are LOSERS...